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Download PDF File Tis pamphlet is a reprint of the executive summary of Te Jeferson-Hemings Controversy: Report of the Scholars Commission, the defnitive 412-page inquiry into the Jeferson- Hemings issue conducted by 12 distinguished scholars in 2001 under the leadership of Professor Robert F. Turner and published in book form by the Carolina Academic Press, ISBN-13: 978-0890890851. Te Scholars’ individual conclusions, with the exception of one member, ranged from “serious skepticism about the charge to a conviction that it is almost certainly false”. Reprinted with the permission of Professor Robert F. Turner, the Tomas Jeferson Heritage Society, and the Carolina Academic Press. July 4, 2016 Preface For more than two centuries there have been rumors and allegations that Thomas Jef- ferson had a long-term sexual relationship with an enslaved woman named Sally Hem- ings. They originated from the pen of a disreputable journalist named James Thomson Callender in October 1802 and were picked up by Federalist editors and abolitionists in the United States and abroad. Most serious Jefferson scholars and many of Jefferson’s po- litical enemies dismissed them, in part because the notorious Callender lacked credibil- ity and in part because the charge seemed so out of character for Jefferson. But the story resurfaced with the 1974 publication of Fawn Brodie’s Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate Bi- ography and became more believable in the 1997 book by Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings. Perhaps the most decisive development in the case was the publication in the prestigious British science journal Nature in November 1998 of results of a DNA study linking Sally Hemings’ youngest son to a Jeferson father. In January 2000 the Tomas Jeferson Memo- rial Foundation – owner of Jeferson’s home at Monticello and long a protector of the former president’s reputation – issued its own report concluding that President Jeferson fathered at least one and perhaps all of Sally Hemings’ children. Still, not everyone was convinced, and a group of doubters came together and established the Still,Tomas not Jeeveryoneferson Heritagewas convinced, Society. and T eira group frst act of wasdoubters to seek came a blue-ribbon together and reexami- estab- nationlished theof all Thomas of the evidenceJefferson forHeritage and against Society. T Theiromas Jefirstferson’s act was paternity to seek aof blue-ribbon one or more re- of Sallyexamination Hemings’ of children. all of the T evidenceey approached for and aagainst diverse Thomas group of Jefferson’s senior scholars paternity with of a onesimple or request:more of carefullySally Hemings’ examine children. all of the They evidence, approached draw youra diverse own group conclusions, of senior and scholars issue a publicwith a simplereport. request: Te Heritage carefully Society examine played all of no the role evidence, in the actualdraw your investigation, own conclusions, and no memberand issue of a thepublic Scholars report. Commission The Heritage was Society compensated played no in roleany wayin the for actual his or investigation, her eforts in thisand process.no member of the Scholars Commission was compensated in any way for his or her efforts in this process. This volume is the final product of that “Scholars Commission” in- quirRoberty. F. Turner Charlottesville, Virginia February 14, 2011 xiii The Jefferson-Hemings Controversy Scholars Commission on The Jefferson-Hemings Matter Report 12 April 2001 Summary The question of whether Thomas Jefferson fathered one or more children by his slave Sally Hemings is an issue about which honorable people can and do disagree. After a careful review of all of the evidence, the commission agrees unanimously that the alle- gationThey are is byth eno vi ewsmeans of thproven;e scho landars wwehose find names it regrettable appear ththatereon, public an confusiond do not necessar about theily 1998reflect DNA the opinionstesting and of otherother evidencemembers has of misledthe group. many A lthoughpeople. Withacademic the exception or other affilia-of one member,tions of members whose views are arelisted set forforth purposes both below of identification, and in his more nothing detailed in ap thispended report dissent, is in- ourtended individual to reflect conclusions the opinion range of any from college, serious university, skepticism foundation, about the orcharge other to entity a convic- with tionwhich that members it is almost of the certainly group mayfalse. currently or in the past have been associated. Our dissenting member believes that there is not sufficient evidence to state conclu- sively one way or the other whether Thomas Jefferson fathered any children by Sally Hem- ings. Based upon the totality of the evidence that does exist, he finds the argument for Jefferson’s paternity in the case of Eston Hemings somewhat more persuasive than the case against. He regards the question of the paternity of Sally Hemings’ other children as unsettled. 3 4 REPORT OF THE SCHOLARS COMMISSION Report of the Scholars Commission on the Jefferson-Hemings Matter Introduction The release in November, 1998, of DNA evidence tying one of Sally Hemings’ chil- dren to a Jefferson father, and the subsequent report by the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation, have led to a widespread perception both within the academic community and among the public that science has conclusively proven that Thomas Jefferson had a sexual relationship with one of his slaves that produced one or more children. About a year ago, a number of Jefferson admirers formed the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society (TJHS), and one of their first acts was to ask a group of Jefferson scholars to reexamine the issue carefully and issue a public report. This report is the result of that inquiry. Background to the Controversy On September 1, 1802, the Richmond Recorder published an article alleging that Pres- ident Thomas Jefferson had fathered several children by his slave Sally Hemings. Its au- thor was James Thomson Callender, a journalist who had fled Scotland for alleged sedition against the Crown and had briefly received financial support from Thomas Jefferson while Callender was supporting the Republican cause by attacking the incumbent Federalists. Callender was a talented writer with a proclivity for attacking those in power, and dur- ing his brief decade in America he vehemently attacked, among others, the first five men to serve as President of the United States. His skill with words exceeded his concern for the truth, and many of his allegations proved patently false. As President Jefferson learned more about the man’s character, he rejected Callender’s efforts to build a friendship and discouraged him from moving to the Charlottesville area, rebuffs which clearly stung the mercurial Callender. Callender’s attack on Jefferson was prompted in part by President Jef- ferson’s refusal to name him to the position of Postmaster for Richmond, Virginia, and was the fulfillment of a threat Callender had made to publish articles that would embar- rass the President if the appointment was not forthcoming. Callender had never visited Monticello, and he admitted that his charges were based upon conversations with people in the Charlottesville area who had noted the existence of light-skinned “mulatto” slaves on Jefferson’s mountain. The story was picked up by the opposition Federalist press, but even some prominent Federalists dismissed it as un- true, recalling some of the falsehoods Callender had written about their own party lead- ers. Nevertheless, the story resurfaced from time to time over the decades and in 1873 was reinforced by allegations attributed to one of Sally Hemings’ children and another former Monticello slave. Historians continued to discount it, but in 1974 Professor Fawn Brodie published Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History, that gave the story new life and— while not well received by many historians—was a commercial success. The story achieved attention again in 1997, with the publication by the University Press of Virginia of Professor Annette Gordon-Reed’s Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hem- ings. Then, on November 5, 1998, Nature magazine published the results of DNA tests REPORT OF THE SCHOLARS COMMISSION 5 that strongly suggested that Sally Hemings’ youngest son, Eston, had been fathered by someone with the same Y chromosome as Thomas Jefferson. This was not the same kind of precise “99.99 percent accurate” DNA testing that Americans learned of during the 1994 murder trial of O.J. Simpson, but rather was designed primarily to disprove pa- ternity. The test could not distinguish between the offspring of male-line ancestors, and thus pointed the finger at Thomas Jefferson no more than it did at any of the other roughly two dozen known male descendants of Jefferson’s grandfather present in Vir- ginia at the time. Because of the general nature of the test, although no DNA from Thomas Jefferson was available, it was possible to use DNA extracted from the blood of descendants of Jefferson’s paternal cousins. The resulting match did not prove Thomas Jefferson fathered Eston Hemings, but it did place him within a group of ap- proximately twenty-five known Virginia men believed to carry the Jefferson family Y chromosome. Nevertheless, the story was presented in much of the press as a conclusive confirma- tion of Thomas Jefferson’s paternity of Eston and presumably other children born to Sally Hemings as well. The issue seemed conclusively resolved in January, 2000, when the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation (TJMF)—the organization that maintains Thomas Jefferson’s home at Monticello and has long been a champion of his legacy—is- sued a research report concluding there was a “strong likelihood that Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings had a relationship over time that led to the birth of one, and perhaps all, of the known children of Sally Hemings.” The Scholars Commission Not everyone was convinced, however, and shortly after the TJMF report was released a group of Jefferson admirers, led by a former President of the Jefferson family’s Monti- cello Association (MA), decided to establish the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society (TJHS) in order to promote public education and understanding about the man.
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